Dictionary › 南辕北辙

南辕北辙

nán yuán běi zhé

HSK 3.0 level 7-9 4-character word Traditional 南轅北轍

南辕北辙 (nán yuán běi zhé) means "to act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom)". It is an HSK 3.0 level 7-9 word, and was not on the old six-level HSK list.

What 南辕北辙 means

1. to act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom)

The characters in 南辕北辙

• 南nánsouth
• 辕yuánshaft of a cart or carriage; (bound form) entrance gate of a military camp or yamen…
• 北běinorth; (classical) to be defeated
• 辙zhérut; track of a wheel (Taiwan pr. chè); (colloquial) the direction of traffic…

Example sentences

• 你要南辕北辙了。
  Nǐ yào nányuánběizhé le.
  You're not going in the right direction.

Go deeper

• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read nán yuán běi zhé correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.